Abandonment of crop lands leads to different recovery patterns for ant and plant communities in Eastern Europe

Significant proportion of crop lands have been abandoned as management strategies have changed in Central and Eastern Europe in the past decades. The study of insect versus plant communities in such areas could help us understand how these processes take place, and whether these communities return to a semi-natural state maintained by human activities. Amongst insects ants, as ecosystem engineers, are a perfect target group in this respect. We studied epigaeic ant and plant communities of abandoned old-fields in Romania. Contrary to our expectations, the total number of ant species did not increase with time during succession on old-fields contrary to plants, where an increase was registered in the total number. Disturbancetolerant ant species dominated the ant communities throughout the successional gradient, while in the case of plants a transition was found from weed-dominated to semi-natural communities. The diversity of both ant and plant communities increased after the 1-year stage, but the patterns were different. While a return to semi-natural state could be observed in plants during old-field succession, such a definite change did not occur in ants. This might be caused by the landscape context: the lack of connectivity of old-fields to larger natural areas. While plant propagules of semi-natural and natural habitat species can still successfully colonize the old fields even under such conditions, ant colonizers are mainly disturbance-tolerant species typical for agricultural areas, which can be hardly replaced by typical grassland species. Our findings underline the existence of important discrepancies between plant and ant community succession, mostly treated as paralleling each other. This is the first study to handle the effect of abandonment on ant and plant communities simultaneously in Eastern Europe

Renal fibrosis, immune cell infiltration and changes of TRPC channel expression after unilateral ureteral obstruction in Trpc6-/- mice

Background/Aims: The transient receptor potential cation channel subfamily C member 6 (TRPC6) is a Ca-permeable nonselective cation channel and has received recent attention because of its capability to promote chronic kidney disease (CKD). The aims of this study were (i) to examine whether deletion of TRPC6 impacts on renal fibrosis and inflammatory cell infiltration in an early CKD model of unilateral ureter obstruction (UUO) in mice; and (ii) whether TRPC6-deficiency as well as UUO affect the regulation of TRPC expression in murine kidneys. Methods: Wild-type (WT), Trpc6-knockout (Trpc6) and New Zealand obese (NZO) mice underwent sham operation or unilateral ureteral obstruction (UUO). The kidneys were harvested 7 days after surgery. We examined renal fibrosis and inflammatory cell infiltration by histological and immunohistochemical staining. The mRNA expression of TRPC members and markers of fibrosis and inflammation in kidney were assessed by using real-time quantitative reverse transcription PCR. Results: Histological and immunohistochemical analyses revealed less inflammatory cell infiltration (F4/80 and CD3) in UUO kidneys of Trpc6 mice compared to UUO kidneys of WT mice as well as less fibrosis. Genomic deletion of TRPC6 also affected the expression of pro-fibrotic genes in UUO Trpc6 kidneys compared to UUO WT kidneys while the expression of pro-inflammatory genes did not differ. UUO caused marked up-regulation of Trpc6 and down-regulation of Trpc1 mRNA in kidneys of WT and NZO mice. Trpc3 mRNA expression was significantly elevated in kidneys of Trpc6 mice underwent UUO while the levels did not change in kidneys of neither WT nor in NZO mice underwent UUO. Conclusion: TRPC6 contributes to renal fibrosis and immune cell infiltration in the UUO mouse model. Therefore, inhibition of TRPC6 emerges as a promising novel therapeutic strategy for treatment of chronic kidney failure in chronic obstructive nephropathy. However, confounding genomic and non-genomic effects of other TRPC channels should be taken into consideration to fully comprehend the renoprotective potential of targeting TRPC6 therapeutically under chronic kidney damaging conditions

Thermal QCD in a non-uniform magnetic background

Off-central heavy-ion collisions are known to feature magnetic fields with magnitudes and characteristic gradients corresponding to the scale of the strong interactions. In this work, we employ equilibrium lattice simulations of the underlying theory, QCD, involving similar inhomogeneous magnetic field profiles to achieve a better understanding of this system. We simulate three flavors of dynamical staggered quarks with physical masses at a range of magnetic fields and temperatures, and extrapolate the results to the continuum limit. Analyzing the impact of the field on the quark condensate and the Polyakov loop, we find non-trivial spatial features that render the QCD medium qualitatively different as in the homogeneous setup, especially at temperatures around the transition. In addition, we construct leading-order chiral perturbation theory for the inhomogeneous background and compare its prediction to our lattice results at low temperature. Our findings will be useful to benchmark effective theories and low-energy models of QCD for a better description of peripheral heavy-ion collisions.Comment: 24 pages, 15 figure

Spinel ferrite nanocrystals embedded inside ZnO: magnetic, electronic and magneto-transport properties

In this paper we show that spinel ferrite nanocrystals (NiFe2O4, and CoFe2O4) can be texturally embedded inside a ZnO matrix by ion implantation and post-annealing. The two kinds of ferrites show different magnetic properties, e.g. coercivity and magnetization. Anomalous Hall effect and positive magnetoresistance have been observed. Our study suggests a ferrimagnet/semiconductor hybrid system for potential applications in magneto-electronics. This hybrid system can be tuned by selecting different transition metal ions (from Mn to Zn) to obtain various magnetic and electronic properties.Comment: 12 pages, 14 figs. accepted for publication at PR

Does reproduction cause oxidative stress? An open question

There has been substantial recent interest in the possible role of oxidative stress as a mechanism underlying life-history trade-offs, particularly with regard to reproductive costs. Several recent papers have found no evidence that reproduction increases oxidative damage and so have questioned the basis of the hypothesis that oxidative damage mediates the reproduction–lifespan trade-off. However, we suggest here that the absence of the predicted relationships could be due to a fundamental problem in the design of all of the published empirical studies, namely a failure to manipulate reproductive effort. We conclude by suggesting experimental approaches that might provide a more conclusive test of the hypothesis

Formal representation of complex SNOMED CT expressions

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Definitory expressions about clinical procedures, findings and diseases constitute a major benefit of a formally founded clinical reference terminology which is ontologically sound and suited for formal reasoning. SNOMED CT claims to support formal reasoning by description-logic based concept definitions.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>On the basis of formal ontology criteria we analyze complex SNOMED CT concepts, such as "Concussion of Brain with(out) Loss of Consciousness", using alternatively full first order logics and the description logic <inline-formula><m:math xmlns:m="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" name="1472-6947-8-S1-S9-i1"><m:semantics><m:mrow><m:mi>ℰ</m:mi><m:mi>ℒ</m:mi></m:mrow><m:annotation encoding="MathType-MTEF"> MathType@MTEF@5@5@+=feaagaart1ev2aaatCvAUfKttLearuWrP9MDH5MBPbIqV92AaeXatLxBI9gBaebbnrfifHhDYfgasaacPC6xNi=xH8viVGI8Gi=hEeeu0xXdbba9frFj0xb9qqpG0dXdb9aspeI8k8fiI+fsY=rqGqVepae9pg0db9vqaiVgFr0xfr=xfr=xc9adbaqaaeGaciGaaiaabeqaaeqabiWaaaGcbaWenfgDOvwBHrxAJfwnHbqeg0uy0HwzTfgDPnwy1aaceaGae8hmHuKae8NeHWeaaa@37B1@</m:annotation></m:semantics></m:math></inline-formula>.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Typical complex SNOMED CT concepts, including negations or not, can be expressed in full first-order logics. Negations cannot be properly expressed in the description logic <inline-formula><m:math xmlns:m="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" name="1472-6947-8-S1-S9-i1"><m:semantics><m:mrow><m:mi>ℰ</m:mi><m:mi>ℒ</m:mi></m:mrow><m:annotation encoding="MathType-MTEF"> MathType@MTEF@5@5@+=feaagaart1ev2aaatCvAUfKttLearuWrP9MDH5MBPbIqV92AaeXatLxBI9gBaebbnrfifHhDYfgasaacPC6xNi=xH8viVGI8Gi=hEeeu0xXdbba9frFj0xb9qqpG0dXdb9aspeI8k8fiI+fsY=rqGqVepae9pg0db9vqaiVgFr0xfr=xfr=xc9adbaqaaeGaciGaaiaabeqaaeqabiWaaaGcbaWenfgDOvwBHrxAJfwnHbqeg0uy0HwzTfgDPnwy1aaceaGae8hmHuKae8NeHWeaaa@37B1@</m:annotation></m:semantics></m:math></inline-formula> underlying SNOMED CT. All concepts concepts the meaning of which implies a temporal scope may be subject to diverging interpretations, which are often unclear in SNOMED CT as their contextual determinants are not made explicit.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The description of complex medical occurrents is ambiguous, as the same situations can be described as (i) a complex occurrent <it>C </it>that has <it>A </it>and <it>B </it>as temporal parts, (ii) a simple occurrent <it>A' </it>defined as a kind of A followed by some <it>B</it>, or (iii) a simple occurrent <it>B' </it>defined as a kind of <it>B </it>preceded by some <it>A</it>. As negative statements in SNOMED CT cannot be exactly represented without a (computationally costly) extension of the set of logical constructors, a solution can be the reification of negative statments (e.g., "Period with no Loss of Consciousness"), or the use of the SNOMED CT context model. However, the interpretation of SNOMED CT context model concepts as description logics axioms is not recommended, because this may entail unintended models.</p

The gut microbiota is associated with the small intestinal paracellular permeability and the development of the immune system in healthy children during the first two years of life

BACKGROUND: The intestinal barrier plays an important role in the defense against infections, and nutritional, endocrine, and immune functions. The gut microbiota playing an important role in development of the gastrointestinal tract can impact intestinal permeability and immunity during early life, but data concerning this problem are scarce. METHODS: We analyzed the microbiota in fecal samples (101 samples in total) collected longitudinally over 24 months from 21 newborns to investigate whether the markers of small intestinal paracellular permeability (zonulin) and immune system development (calprotectin) are linked to the gut microbiota. The results were validated using data from an independent cohort that included the calprotectin and gut microbiota in children during the first year of life. RESULTS: Zonulin levels tended to increase for up to 6 months after childbirth and stabilize thereafter remaining at a high level while calprotectin concentration was high after childbirth and began to decline from 6 months of life. The gut microbiota composition and the related metabolic potentials changed during the first 2 years of life and were correlated with zonulin and calprotectin levels. Faecal calprotectin correlated inversely with alpha diversity (Shannon index, r = − 0.30, FDR P (Q) = 0.039). It also correlated with seven taxa; i.a. negatively with Ruminococcaceae (r = − 0.34, Q = 0.046), and Clostridiales (r = − 0.34, Q = 0.048) and positively with Staphylococcus (r = 0.38, Q = 0.023) and Staphylococcaceae (r = 0.35, Q = 0.04), whereas zonulin correlated with 19 taxa; i.a. with Bacillales (r = − 0.52, Q = 0.0004), Clostridiales (r = 0.48, Q = 0.001) and the Ruminococcus (torques group) (r = 0.40, Q = 0.026). When time intervals were considered only changes in abundance of the Ruminococcus (torques group) were associated with changes in calprotectin (β = 2.94, SE = 0.8, Q = 0.015). The dynamics of stool calprotectin was negatively associated with changes in two MetaCyc pathways: pyruvate fermentation to butanoate (β = − 4.54, SE = 1.08, Q = 0.028) and Clostridium acetobutylicum fermentation (β = − 4.48, SE = 1.16, Q = 0.026). CONCLUSIONS: The small intestinal paracellular permeability, immune system-related markers and gut microbiota change dynamically during the first 2 years of life. The Ruminococcus (torques group) seems to be especially involved in controlling paracellular permeability. Staphylococcus, Staphylococcaceae, Ruminococcaceae, and Clostridiales, may be potential biomarkers of the immune system. Despite observed correlations their clear causation and health consequences were not proven. Mechanistic studies are required